Anna, the first born daughter of a nobleman, fallen from grace, faces loss of home and riches as her father is imprisoned for treason, and being sent from her safe haven in Sussex to dwell with her strange old spinster aunt in the dark, mysterious forests of Scotland, right between the highlands and the lowlands. She is a stranger, an orphan and a tripping stone for all others, especially Morag, her aunt's mysterious ward, who sees her as a danger to her possible inheritance. There are mysteries in the small manor, mysteries of past and present, that she must face to learn how to deal and how to survive, and perhaps even clear her father's name... And, on top of it all, there is a legend of an elfin knight that haunts her days and nights, a dark, irresistible man that enchants maidens away from their homes to be subject to his evil will and lust and kills them...a man who might not be as fictional as she thought at first, though no less devilish...